


Revelation Weekend

by timesuck



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Jughead Jones is Not Asexual, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Toni Topaz is an Actual Human Character with Actual Human Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-07 05:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timesuck/pseuds/timesuck
Summary: Jughead takes a breath, steeling himself for when Betty returns. He’s going to sit her down and just get it out, tell her it meant nothing and that he’s regretted it ever since, even before they got back together—that he never stopped loving her and that if she can find a way to forgive him, he knows he’ll never fuck up like that again.“Jug,” he hears her call, and then feels the air leave the trailer when he sees Betty in the doorway to his bedroom, holding Toni’s bra—pinched between two fingers like it's evidence, like it might bite. “What the hell is this?”





	1. Chapter 1

When Betty arrives, Jughead’s alone in his trailer with a worksheet of unanswered math problems in front of him on the coffee table. She’s in her cheerleading uniform, and though he likes to think of himself a man above teenage clichés, there’s something about her in it—those long legs, the strip of skin between that tiny skirt and top—that does him in each time.

She drops her backpack by the door, steps out of her Keds and comes to join him on the couch, cold fingers sliding their way under his shirt and grazing softly across his stomach. He shuts his eyes—he can smell her now, sweet with soap and sweat from practice—as he wills himself to get a grip, quench down his desire. An impossible feat for him, with her; he’s wanted her since before he understood what this kind of wanting _was,_ but Jughead also prides himself on his control.

It’s not fair to her, he reminds himself. It’s been a week since the drag race fiasco and their subsequent make-up, and he still hasn’t told her. He can’t seem to find the words. They sound impossible in his ears. But they’re not; he knows it’s true, even if he wishes now it wasn’t. He and Toni hooked up, here in the trailer, there in his bed—her long, pink hair askew on his pillow when they woke up together in the morning.

“Jug, what’s wrong?” Betty asks him, and before he can respond, he feels her shift above him—a leg swinging up and over, dropping against his other side. He opens his eyes to a lapful of Betty Cooper in her goddamn cheerleader uniform and though his brain is determined to hold on and do what’s right, his body has other ideas. She’s smiling, sinfully sweet, and leans in to kiss him, her tongue flicking his mouth open and _fuck,_ he can’t help but kiss her back, hands gripping her hips hard as she starts to grind down on his cock, already straining painfully against his jeans.

“You can tell me,” she promises as she starts tracing soft, urgent bites down his neck, and Jughead knows he has to put some distance between them soon or he’s going to lose his last ounce of resolve. “Betts,” he says, cupping her neck and nudging her back, fighting down the urge to wind his fingers through her ponytail and pull, just to hear the little sigh of need and desire that she always makes when he does. “I’m in the middle of my math homework.”

Betty fights a frown and schools her face into what she hopes is a neutral look. “Okay,” she says, and slides off of him, standing by the door and trying not to fidget. It’s a Friday, and Jughead isn’t one to prioritize homework anyways, but she supposes she can’t complain. Even though it’s made her feel a little like her mother, she’s been after him to keep up his grades since joining the Serpents and here he is, doing just that.

But he’s barely touched her since they got back together and she’s starting to worry. She misses how much he wanted her, before. It’s hard not to feel like she’s messed up everything between them, even though he swears she hasn’t. “In that case, can I get changed in your room? It’s a little too cold for my current look.”

“Yeah, of course,” Jughead says without thinking, feeling relieved to have her off his lap and that soon, she’ll be back to wearing her normal clothes. Not that he’s not still attracted to her in those pastel sweaters and collared shirts—he is, always. Betty could wear anything: a trash bag, a sack, and it wouldn’t matter. But that damn cheerleading uniform does things to him. It occurs to him that she _knows_ that; she could have changed after practice at school, but she didn’t. She wore it here for him. The realization makes his dick jump again and he knows he has to tell her about Toni, even if she never forgives him for it, because this—dodging the eager advances of a pliant Betty Cooper; fighting against how much he wants her; the overwhelming guilt he feels constantly now— _this_ is his own personal hell.

He takes a breath, steeling himself for when she returns. He’s going to sit her down and just get it out, tell her it meant nothing and that he’s regretted it ever since, even before they got back together—that he never stopped loving her and that if she can find a way to forgive him, he knows he’ll never fuck up like that again.

“Jug,” he hears her call, and then feels the air leave the trailer when he sees Betty in the doorway to his bedroom, holding Toni’s bra—pinched between two fingers like it's evidence, like it might bite. “What the hell is this?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s silent in the little tin trailer, except for their jagged breaths. Outside, Betty can hear the wind howling—from the sound of it, a storm is coming tonight. “I know should have told you sooner,” Jughead says, small and sorry. “That Toni was staying here and about… about that.” He can’t bring himself to say it again. “I just didn’t know how.”

“Betts,” Jughead sputters, and she’s staring at him like there’s still a reasonable explanation—like he isn’t this supreme fuck-up who’s about to disappoint her all over again. The words spill out: “Toni's been staying here. Her family kicked her out again and I said she could crash for awhile. I didn’t want her to be on the street.” Betty jerks her head slightly when he says that; it’s a low blow, to subtly remind her that that he's been homeless when he knows how she’ll react. And exactly as he knew she would, she’s already looking at him with a hint of forgiveness.

“I’ve been sleeping on the couch,” he adds, and it’s so, so tempting to leave it at that. But when he sees her trusting face, he hates himself all over again because he's twisting the facts, ultimately making it harder—not easier—to get out what he has to say.

It’s true, though; since that night, he _has_ been sleeping on the couch and nothing else has happened between them. It’s a little awkward at points—the trailer is small and it’s intimate to have Toni in his space like this, maybe more intimate than what they did together then—but it feels like they’re settling back into a genuine, familiar friendship.

Betty walks into the room and sits down next to him on the couch again. She drops Toni’s bra onto the table, on top of his stupid math homework, and from there it spreads like a poison, infecting everything between them.

She bites the inside of her lip, wrestling with her reaction. It’s no secret that there was already tension between her and Toni, even though she tried not to be catty. _The jealous, insecure girlfriend_ —that wasn’t who she wanted to be. But now, this feels like a punch in the stomach: that Jughead would hide this from her, that there’s a closeness shared between the two of them that she didn’t even know about. It’s a betrayal, and judging from how cagey he’s acting—Jughead knows that, too.

“But also,” Jughead stutters, and her face snaps up. It’s his voice, raw and scared, that signals to Betty that the worst is yet to come. “I need to tell you something.” He swallows and wipes his hand on his jeans, fiddling with the folds in the denim by his knees. “Something else, about Toni,” and Betty feels ice in her veins.

“We, uh. We hooked up, after my initiation.” Jughead looks like he can’t even believe what he’s saying. Like he wants the earth to open up and swallow him alive or like maybe he might start crying but right now, Betty can’t imagine giving a shit about how he feels. “It meant nothing, really—I was so lost and Archie said you never wanted to see me again, and it just happened, only once, and I’m so, so sorry, Betts.”

It’s silent in the little tin trailer, except for their jagged breaths. Outside, Betty can hear the wind howling—from the sound of it, a storm is coming tonight. “I know should have told you sooner,” Jughead whispers, small and sorry. “That Toni was staying here and about… about that.” He can’t bring himself to say it again. “I just didn’t know how.”

Betty looks down at her hands, barely registering the terrain of scars bridging across her flesh. She’s blazing with a familiar strum of anger and despair but finds, to her surprise, that she has no desire to ball her fingers into fists and feel the satisfying pool of blood gather in her palms. That—that’s for when she feels helpless, trapped. Right now, Betty feels ruthless and wild with the possibilities before her, the control that she has now.

“Please say something,” Jughead begs, and moves to grab her hand. He wants so badly to lace his fingers in with hers, to undo what he’s done. “Don’t fucking touch me,” Betty spits out and stands abruptly, backing out of the room. Jughead’s head falls, and she thinks maybe now he _is_ crying. She grabs her backpack from the edge of the bedroom, refusing to turn and look at the unmade bed ( _where_ _Toni_ _sleeps_ , she thinks and feels a wave of fury rip through her again), then throws on her coat and shoes.

She pulls on the trailer door and the wind snaps it open, wide. Outside, the clouds are dark and heavy. It’s like she’s watching herself in a movie or in a play; none of this feels real. “Don’t,” she says, cutting off Jughead as he looks up again and opens his lips. He seems lost; his shoulders are heaving and his eyes are frantic. “Betty,” he chokes out, and yes, he’s broken her heart in places she didn't even know existed, didn't know could shatter so completely—but for a second, she still wants nothing more than to stay, to kiss him and claim him as her own.

“Don’t call me,” she says, a tear spilling out and running down her cheek. “I need some time,” she adds as she steps out into the oncoming rain, but it’s lost in the howls of the wind as the door bangs shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Jughead, you dummy. (I think maybe I'm incapable of writing versions of Jughead where he's not full of secrets and regrets? Feels pretty canon, though.)
> 
> 2\. This is way less edited than my other writing and I feel like it's definitely not as polished, but I'm trying not to get caught up on that and just move this story along. I'm also new to the present tense and it keeps tripping me up! So, apologies for any slip-ups (goes without saying maybe, but this is unbeta'd).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Look, Toni,” says Betty, her voice low and level. It reminds Toni of an wounded animal, steeling itself for a last strike. “I don’t know what you want, but you’re _obviously_ the last person I want to talk to right now.”
> 
> There’s a second before Toni reacts, and then she nods, once—short and quick. It’s hard to argue with that. She feels herself reeling from the depth of Betty’s fury, hot below the surface. “I get that,” she replies. “But there are two Ghoulies in the parking lot. They followed you here.”

Betty manages to pull it together as she walks across Sunnyside trailer park. Alice Cooper isn’t going to win an award for Parent of the Year anytime soon, but she’s taught her daughters to never cry in public and right now Betty feels oddly grateful to her for that. What she wants most is to go home and be alone, draw herself a bath and weep a little while she figures out what to do, how to feel. She knows that’s a little hackneyed—the stuff of jilted lovers in rom-coms and romance novels—but she’s at a loss for how else to react. Maybe it’s a cliché for a reason.

But first, she has to stop by Pop’s. Unfortunately she’d already called in an order, thinking that she and Jughead would head into town to pick up dinner and then—maybe, hopefully—back to her place, since Alice is out of town all weekend at a conference. She’d wanted to surprise him, wanted everything to be _just right_ since she could tell something was off between them, but honestly— _this_ had never occurred to her. She feels naive now, but she’d always believed that Jughead was loyal and devoted to her. She had thought what they had was real.

 _Maybe you’re being unfair to him_ , a small voice says in the back of her head as she walks up the steps to the Chock’lit Shoppe, its neon lights bright against the darkening night sky. It wasn’t like he’d cheated; they were broken up at the time. _She’d_ broken up with _him_. Technically, she reminded herself, she’d enlisted Archie to do it. Just the thought of that conversation had broken her heart. She was terrified that he’d see through her, that he’d push her into telling him _why,_ which at the time was a risk she was unwilling to take. Now she’s not so sure he would have—maybe she doesn’t know him as well as she thought. Maybe Jughead never really knew her, either.

“Betty!” chuckles Pop, all smiles, when he sees her walk over to the counter. “I wasn’t expecting you just yet. We started on your food but it’ll be a little longer—all those burgers.” He knows she was planning a special night for Jughead; they’d shared a conspiratorial giggle after practice, over the phone. It feels like a lifetime ago, now.

“Okay,” she says, forcing a quick grin and taking out her wallet to pay. She should have called again from the trailer park—maybe she could have caught him before he started cooking. Now, she’s going to have more food than she knows what to do with. She’ll be eating cold burgers all weekend.

As if she needs any more reminders of Jughead’s absence.

Betty sneaks a short look around Pop’s, dreading the thought that someone will come over to talk to her. It’s Friday and most of the booths are full, but there’s one in the back that look open. “I’ll just be waiting over there,” she motions as Pop runs her credit card. She signs the receipt and walks to the table, keeping her head down. There are a few kids from school throughout the restaurant; Reggie’s telling a loud, obnoxious joke to Moose and Midge, and at the next table Trev is sitting with Ethel, sharing a milkshake and looking very much like they’re on a date. Any other day and Betty would be overjoyed by that; Ethel had been dropping hints to her for weeks that she liked him—but tonight, she just wants to get out of here without having to talk to anyone.

She plunks down at the booth, facing towards the front so she can keep an eye on Pop. The second he motions for her to grab her food, she'll be out the door and on her way home.

 

* * *

 

Toni’s nursing a cup of coffee—her fourth of the night, and it’s only 7pm—when she sees Betty walk in to Pop’s. She expects to see Jughead follow after her; after all, she knows that they had _plans_ tonight. Jughead had brought it up this morning, mumbling awkwardly into his cereal. It was obvious that he was asking her to clear out of the trailer for a few hours, and honestly, she’s more than happy to oblige; hence her decision to hole up at the Chock’lit Shoppe until things pick up at the Whyte Wyrm. She has no desire to be present for whatever it is that they do when they’re alone together. Talk about uncomfortable.

She thinks Jughead still hasn’t told Betty that she’s staying in the trailer, which means that he probably hasn’t told her about what happened between them, either. It’s the kind of thing that, if the specific information he was omitting from his girlfriend didn’t directly involve her (and if she wasn’t relying on him for a place to crash), she’d be on his case about it. Considering how obvious it is that he’s in love with Betty—and, she would know, after everything that’s happened—Jughead’s pretty terrible about being honest when he thinks he’s going to disappoint her. It happened when he first transferred, and then when he decided to join the Serpents, and it’s happening again now.

But, Toni reassures herself, it’s decidedly not her problem. She may have temporarily found herself in the middle of their drama, but Jughead and Betty’s relationship is not hers to fix.

She watches as Betty walks from the counter and sits down at a booth, alone. She doesn’t look up again, keeping her eyes on the table or in her lap—Toni can’t tell exactly, but her blonde head stays where it is, moving up and down in time to her measured breathing. Toni doesn’t really _get_ Betty’s whole vibe or why Jughead’s so into her—she looks like she could be an old-school Disney princess, with small furry animals to braid her hair and sing her lullabies as she falls asleep. She’s not exactly Toni’s type; she’s drawn to dark and broody (which explains Jughead) or deeply damaged (Jughead again, and that burst of undeniable attraction she felt for that bitchy redhead Cheryl when they met a few weeks back).

But Betty is smart and observant. Those are basically the only things that Toni knows about her, and she respects her for it. Well, _u_ _sually_ observant, at least—apparently, not tonight. Whatever’s going on with her, it’s distracting enough that she hasn’t noticed Toni, or the set of bikers tailing her as she walked to Pop’s. They’re waiting for her outside as the rain begins to fall.

They’re not Serpents. Toni can tell before they’ve even parked. She knows the whole gang, can recognize any one of them just by the angle of a headlight or the rev of an engine. These two are Ghoulies—probably keeping tabs on anyone who visits Jughead (which means it’s possible they’ve also been following _her_ , she realizes, but she doubts that they would have managed to be stealthy enough that she wouldn’t have noticed sooner. Toni does not easily let her guard down).

Right now, most of the rival gang’s high-level members are still under arrest, thanks to that bullshit stunt from Jughead’s ridiculous friend, Archie. It was a dumb move and resulted in Jughead having to clean up his mess, starting with explaining himself to some majorly pissed Serpents—Tall Boy had made it perfectly clear that they do not, under any circumstances, involve the law in their business—and what will surely turn into some furious Ghoulies once they’ve been released. For the millionth time, Toni thinks that Jughead’s loyalty is still misplaced; it doesn’t belong with these Northsiders, who—even if they care about him—clearly cannot comprehend what his life is like now.

Toni watches as Pop walks over to Betty, to-go bag in hand, and she gets up to leave. It’s clear that Betty still hasn’t noticed anything’s amiss, and Toni considers briefly letting her go out alone. She thinks it's unlikely the two men in the lot will do anything; if they’re not in prison, it means they’re pretty low down on the Ghoulie totem pole—but it’s also possible that the Ghoulies don’t follow the same hierarchical orders as the Serpents do, so who knows. And even if nothing bad actually happens to Betty—they probably just want to scare her a little, to make sure it gets back to Jughead—Toni knows Jughead will swear for vengeance and do something rash and stupid as a result. The Serpents are in enough trouble already thanks to his antics.

Plus, if something did happen to Betty and Jughead somehow found out that Toni could have stopped it, she knows he’d end their friendship. She’s not quite thrilled at how things have played out between them—it’s not that she’s pining over him; the whole encounter is more embarrassing than anything else, considering how little it meant to him—but they understand each other. It’s a rare connection for her; to feel seen and understood, even if they don’t always agree. She doesn’t want to lose him as a friend. And as a roommate, she reminds herself wryly.

Betty gathers up her bags, preoccupied with her thoughts. A small, petty part of her is still tempted to let the scene in front of her play out without intervention, but deep down, Toni doesn’t _really_ want anything bad to happen to Betty, either. She stands and walks over to her table, then clears her throat. “Hey, Betty,” she says, not exactly sure how to play this. She doesn’t want to freak her out, but she’s guessing there’s a short window in which Betty will tolerate a conversation with her—probably only a few sentences as she makes her way out the door.

She’s definitely not expecting what happens next, which is this: Betty’s whole body freezes, and her green eyes lock onto Toni’s. There’s a ferocious anger hiding behind her composed face as she braces herself for whatever it is Toni has to say. _Oh shit,_ thinks Toni. _She knows._ That certainly complicates the situation.

“Look, Toni,” says Betty, her voice low and level. It reminds Toni of an wounded animal, steeling itself for a last strike. “I don’t know what you want, but you’re _obviously_ the last person I want to talk to right now.”

There’s a second before Toni reacts, and then she nods, once—short and quick. It’s hard to argue with that. She feels herself reeling from the depth of Betty’s fury, hot below the surface. “I get that,” she replies. “But there are two Ghoulies in the parking lot. They followed you here.”

Betty’s eyes dart to the right, peering out the wide expanse of window on her side. She’s sees two men. One of them is leaning against his bike, smoking a cigarette; a facade of casual. They’re both trying to play it cool but their movements are too calculated, their stances too deliberate. And the rain is starting to pick up, too. It’s turning into the beginning of a real storm, the one that will knock loose all the remaining autumn leaves, leaving bare winter branches in its wake. There’s no good reason these two would be outside of Pop’s in this weather if they weren’t waiting for someone to leave.

“Got it,” clips Betty, taking out her cell. “I’ll get a ride home.” She turns away from Toni, scrolling through her phone. Veronica and Archie are at Cheryl’s tonight for some dumb party—Veronica offered to help set up, part of their bizarre frenemy dynamic that Betty can’t entirely parse, and she’s dragged Archie along too. From this, Betty knows that there’s no way Archie isn’t already wasted. Kevin probably left to meet up with them already, but there’s a chance that she can reach him before he gets there.

“The thing is,” Toni says, mainly to Betty’s back since she’s still facing out the window. “They’re Ghoulies, and they’re hassling you because of Serpents shit.” She pointedly does not say, _because of Jughead_ , though they’re both thinking it. Despite not wanting to give Toni an inch, Betty is oddly relieved that at least that she has enough sense not to casually says his name to her, like it belongs on her lips. She’s not sure she could contain her anger if she did. “You should be escorted home by one of us, to keep you safe.”

 _Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up,_ Betty thinks to herself as the phone rings and rings in her ear, but there’s no answer from Kevin. She clicks off the line and closes her eyes briefly, imagining how good it would feel to tell Toni to fuck off and then walk out, into the storm. In truth, she doesn’t give a shit about the Ghoulies right now; they can follow her all they want. Arguably, the only upside to being the Black Hood’s unwilling muse is that she knows there’s absolutely no way he’ll let anything bad happen to her. Unless it’s by his hand, she thinks to herself bitterly. It’s like having a deadly, psychopathic guardian angel, determined to keep her alive until he decides otherwise.

“Your concern is noted,” says Betty, turning back to Toni, eyes narrowed. “But I definitely don’t need the Serpents. For anything.”

Toni frowns. There’s a double-meaning to Betty’s words, and it’s not subtle. She’s pissed at Jughead (rightly so, acknowledges Toni—it was truly a dick move to not tell her sooner), and she’s making some dumb choices as a result. Even though she’s still pretty sure that the Ghoulies outside pose no real threat beyond trying to scare her, Toni is taken aback by Betty’s dismissive attitude. It’s unlikely but not impossible that they have a far more sinister plan than either of them has realized.

She’s not sure what to do next. Obviously, Betty’s not going to take kindly to Toni calling Jughead so that he can take her home. She can’t call Fangs or Sweat Pea without explaining what’s going on. Even if she’s loose with the details, that’s not really a conversation she wants to have. She and Jughead have reached an unspoken agreement to not tell anyone in the gang about what happened between them, and—especially with Betty standing next to her—she’s not especially keen to start sharing the highlights of her personal life. That really only leaves one other option.

“Look,” says Toni through gritted teeth. This is absolutely not what she wanted to deal with tonight, and though she can usually appreciate the universe’s fucked-up sense of humor, right now she doesn’t find it particularly amusing. “I get that you hate me.” Betty doesn’t react to that, just looks at her with that same calculating stare. “I’m not so fond of you, either,” she adds, because it’s true, and because it seems like the truth is her best shot to get Betty home safely. “But whoever you called to pick you up didn’t answer, and there are two men outside who are likely armed and waiting for you to leave. So instead of letting you walk out of here alone in the rain, here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna get on my bike, I’ll drop you off, and then we can go back to mutually ignoring each other.”

Betty’s frustration is coiling inside of her. There’s no way to explain that the Ghoulies really can’t touch her, and it’s clear from Toni’s stance—arms crossed, weight on one hip, a slight glare across her face—that she’s not taking no for an answer. The whole thing is infuriating; Betty can think of no place she wants to be less right now than on the back of _Toni fucking Topaz’s_ bike, and she really truly hates the idea that Toni thinks she’s helping her. She doesn’t want her sympathy or manipulation—she’s not sure which this is, but it makes her furious, either way.

But Toni’s still standing in front of her, blocking her into the booth. They’ve kept their conversation quiet but they’re starting to be noticed by the other customers; she can see Moose and Reggie watching with interest as they pay their bill, probably heading out to Cheryl’s party next. Betty realizes she’s not getting passed Toni without physically pushing her, and there’s no way she’s allowing tonight’s situation tobecome headline high school gossip. It’s going to be bad enough already, once word gets out about Jughead and Toni’s hook-up. 

Suddenly, she feels so tired; this is turning into a living nightmare and what does it matter anyways, if she accepts a ride from Toni now? It’s not like walking home in the rain is going to somehow change what happened between her and Jughead. “Fine,” she mutters, swinging her backpack over her shoulder as she grabs the take-out bag. “Whatever. I live on Elm."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erm, hello? Is this thing on?
> 
> Uhh, hi there. Sorry for the months and months of radio silence. Season 2 bummed me out for like, a lot of reasons* (but mainly: remember when this show used to be good?), and then my computer lost the next few chapters of [my other fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883933/chapters/26838399) and I got too mad-sad to re-write them, but I'd decided that I had to update that one before this... but then tonight, I decided that was a dumb rule. And here we are! If you're one of the folks who read the first two chapters back in November and have found your way back--thank you for sticking with me. I promise to actually update this on a semi-regular basis now!
> 
> * Edited to add: Except for Choni, which is perfect. Canonically queer Cheryl, be still my heart.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm is directly above them now; thunder booms overhead so loudly that it rattles the windows, followed by a new deluge of rain and swift crush of hail. Betty slides the key through the lock and opens the door, then steps inside. She turns back around and Toni thinks, for a second, that she’s going to say something else to her, but instead a fresh crack of lightning zags across the sky, illuminating them in its eerie glow. 
> 
> Betty’s eyes slide to the street behind her, where she spots two figures hunched by Toni’s bike; the glint of a blade plunging into a tire; the crash of a boot stomping down on a headline; the gnashing of metal against metal, slashing through the Serpent decal on the engine. 
> 
> “Hey!” she yells, running back into the gale. “Get the fuck away from that!”

The storm is fully raging by the time they make it passed the library. The rain is coming down in thick sheets; Toni nearly wipes out as she turns onto Main Street. She’s been riding on her own since she was thirteen and never once been in a crash—she’s better than Fangs and Sweet Pea even if they’d never admit it—but the wind is nearly strong enough to knock them over, and it’s hard to see more than a few feet ahead.

By the time she pulls to a skidding stop on Elm, Toni’s soaked entirely and deeply regretting her decision to perform tonight’s random act of kindness. But her loyalty to the Serpents extends beyond petty teenage grievances and bad weather, so here they are—at Betty’s house. Betty must be freezing, she realizes; she’s only in her cheerleader uniform and a light jacket.

To the left, Betty’s house windows are dark and the porch light is off. Toni is surprised to see that no one is home—Betty Cooper does not seem like a latchkey kid. If she had to guess, Toni would have assumed that inside her perfect Northside house would be a picture perfect Northside family, sitting down to a perfect Northside dinner together. She’s gathered that Betty’s home life is a little more complicated than that; Jughead’s dropped some hints, and almost everyone in town has heard the sob-story of Polly Cooper, but still—it’s a shock to realize that Betty is going home to an empty house, especially considering that she appears to be the Ghoulie’s prime target for retribution.

But if Betty has any concerns about being caught up in a gang turf war, she’s hiding them well. She still seems unfazed by the whole thing; once the bike is stopped, she gives a curt nod to Toni and is off in seconds without so much as a glance in either direction. Toni thinks it’s likely that they lost the Ghoulies in the cover of the rain—but still. Betty should watch her back.

Toni sits up a little straighter and rolls her head to the left in a quick jerk, cracking her neck. Betty might be naive enough to assume nothing bad can happen to her in her perfect little world, but Toni knows better than anyone that the violence and mayhem of the Southside can find you anywhere. It’s a short walk to Betty’s door from the curb, and—even though she’d rather be nearly anywhere else—when it comes to the Serpents, Toni does not half-ass anything. In one fluid motion, she flips up the kickstand, then swings her leg up and over the bike and catches up to Betty to walk her to her door.

* * *

This night can’t possibly get any worse, Betty thinks to herself as she senses Toni next to her in the darkness of the walkway. She’s spent the last twenty minutes with her arms wrapped around Toni’s waist and her face pressed against her jacket, staring straight ahead at those green, glinting serpent eyes. It’s infuriating.

The automatic light switches on as they climb the stairs to her front door, casting its dim glow weakly into the wet, black night. They’re somewhat shielded now, standing on porch together as Betty rifles through her backpack for her keys. It is, even in the din of the storm, an uncomfortable, awkward silence.

“Well,” Betty finally starts as she finds her keychain. “This is me.” Politeness dictates that she should at least say thanks, but she knows at this point she can’t pull off gracious and grateful. She doesn’t really want to try, either. “Hope your night didn’t get too sidetracked,” she bites out. It’s as close to a _thank you_ as she can manage, under the circumstances.

“Don’t worry about it,” Toni replies, dismissively. She doesn’t need any pretend niceties—she can recognize this for what it is: A duty; a transaction. Now she’s done her due diligence for the Serpents; and as a bonus, she can consider her and Betty even. Once Betty is safely through that door, Toni can hop back on her bike and head straight to the Wyrm. She knows she’ll have to tell the rest of the crew that Ghoulies have been sniffing around their turf, but she’d like find a way to downplay her impromptu decision to act as Betty’s chauffeur for the night—if not leave that part out all together. It’ll raise more than a few questions, the answers to which she'd rather not have the whole gang be privy.

The storm is directly above them now; thunder booms overhead so loudly that it rattles the windows, followed by a new deluge of rain and swift crush of hail. Betty slides the key through the lock and opens the door, then steps inside. She turns back around and Toni thinks, for a second, that she’s going to say something else to her, but instead a fresh crack of lightning zags across the sky, illuminating them in its eerie glow.

Betty’s eyes slide to the street behind her, where she spots two figures hunched by Toni’s bike; the glint of a blade plunging into a tire; the crash of a boot stomping down on a headline; the gnashing of metal against metal, slashing through the Serpent decal on the engine.

“Hey!” she yells, running back into the gale. “Get the fuck away from that!”

* * *

Toni’s seconds behind Betty, adrenaline racing. She’s furious with herself for leaving her bike unattended (a rookie mistake, given why she was here)—but mainly, she’s furious at Betty for running straight _towards_ the armed men instead of staying inside. She’s been in her share of fights beyond Serpent Initiation; even with a gang behind you, you don’t last long at Southside High without running into trouble. And as one of the few female Serpents, she's had to claw tooth and nail for their respect. That means being the first one to throw down when the situation calls for it, the first into the fray—and no complaining, not even that time she was jumped behind the school by four assholes over cafeteria table real estate and wasn't found until the next day, still out cold with a busted lip, a black eye and broken arm. She’s small, but she’s tough. If she has to, she knows can take on two Ghoulies without backup—at least put up a good fight. Betty, on the other hand? She’s probably never even slapped anyone.

But by the time they make it down the pathway, the Ghoulies have mounted their bikes and zoomed into the storm, their laughter and cries of “fuck you, Serpent sluts” echoing in the distance. Once she’s decided that they’re not circling back, Toni crouches down to inspect her bike and assess the damage. “Fuck,” she hisses under her breath. The back tire is definitely busted and she'll need a new headlight, plus there are deep the slashes across the front, half of her Serpent snake decal roughly keyed off. It’s impossible to know if they managed to do any worse damage without a full work-up. Even if the Serpents cover half, she still can’t afford it, let alone the cost of the repairs. 

“Yeah, you better run,” Betty yells into the darkness as she races after the retreating Ghoulies—a comment which, in its ridiculousness, momentarily snaps Toni out of her despair. It’s true that she doesn’t know Betty well enough to say for certain, but her behavior has seemed wildly unlike what she knows about her. It doesn’t come across as brave, just reckless—which seems bizarre for a girl known for her reliability and straight As.

But apparently, Toni thinks, Betty must have decided to leave predictability completely behind tonight. Because what she says next, after she’s walked back and caught her breath, completely throws Toni for a loop.

* * *

Even in the storm, Betty can tell from ten feet away that Toni’s bike isn’t going anywhere. The gash across the tire is a dead giveaway. Maybe, she thinks, the Ghoulies were after Toni this whole time, though that doesn’t explain why they followed her from Sunnyside to Pop’s. It’s irrational, but she’s angry that the Serpent’s rival gang is apparently targeting both of them and not just her. She knows they’re doing this to get to Jughead, and the fact that they’ve surmised that Toni is someone important to him—just as important as she is, maybe—brings back a fresh flood of rage and humiliation.

But that doesn’t change the reality of tonight: the storm, the ruined tire, the empty house. Betty takes a measured breath and wishes for a moment that she were anywhere else, that she were any _one_ else—anyone but Perfect, Polite Betty Cooper—before squaring her shoulders and straightening her pony tail. “It’s coming down pretty bad now and you’re not getting far with that tire,” she hears herself saying. “Do you want to come in?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Erm... hi! I really do promise that I'm still here, and am still updating this lil ol' fic. (Thanks for sticking with me.)
> 
> Thoughts:
> 
> 1\. Angry Betty is a pretty fun Betty to write, especially when she is angry at both Jughead and the Black Hood. 
> 
> 2\. STORM FIC. Is this a tag? It should be, if it isn't.
> 
> 3\. I do not know anything about motorcycles, so please forgive the many inaccuracies that I'm sure I've already written. Like, can you even kick off a motorcycle headlight? I definitely do not really know, but in this fic: Yes! Sure!
> 
> 4\. Iffffff you are going to ask me the very logical question of: why did the Ghoulies run away? Thennnnn I am going to give the same answer that the show does, which is: I dunno, but Ghoulies gonna Ghoul! AKA, they are very helpful plot devices. I do have some plans to come back to them, though.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toni shrugs out of her jacket and tosses it on a nearby stool. It looks painfully out of place—it's obvious that the Cooper kitchen is no place for a Serpent’s skin. 
> 
> She watches as Betty busies herself with turning on the oven and grabbing a tray from beneath the stove, on which she places six burgers and a mountain of fries from the Pop’s to-go bag stashed in her backpack. 
> 
> It’s a ridiculous amount of food, Toni thinks, followed by the horrific realization that the only person alive who could eat five of Pop’s burgers in one sitting is Jughead. She cringes. On top of everything else, she’s somehow accidentally inserted herself into the tattered remains of Betty and Jughead’s date night.

Betty starts towards the garage and lifts open the overhead door, then motions for Toni to wheel in her motorcycle before pulling it down behind them both. It makes a loud clang as it hits the concrete floor, echoing in the little garage as a fresh wave of thunder rolls out overhead.

Once they’re inside, it’s easier to see the damage. “Well, the bad news is,” Betty says after bending down to check out the situation. “They managed to slash the tire pretty close to the tread, so you’ll probably need a new one. But, on the plus side, a new headlight is a pretty quick fix and I don’t think they had enough time to mess up the engine.” She stands up and brushes her hands off on her skirt. “Can’t tell for sure without a full work-up, though.”

Toni makes a small _mmhmm_ in agreement. While she’s surprised that Betty knows anything about auto repair, she doesn’t disagree with her assessment; that was more or less what she’d surmised too. It’s a best case scenario, at this point—she’s already homeless; she can’t lose her bike. Maybe her luck will hold and an inspection will find that they chased off the Ghoulies before they caused any substantial damage.

Betty heads towards a door leading into the house. Toni takes one last look, running her hands over the shredded edges of the keyed Serpent sticker, then trails after her.

* * *

She finds herself in a hallway leading into a kitchen—giant, by Sunnyside standards, with an island in the center topped by a vase with fresh lilies. It opens up into a well-decorated living room; a beige couch and love seat set, throw pillows and blankets in various browns and tans. It’s exactly how Toni would have guessed the inside of Betty’s house looks. Her family’s entire trailer could fit inside these two rooms.

Toni shrugs out of her jacket and tosses it on a nearby stool. It looks painfully out of place—it's obvious that the Cooper kitchen is no place for a Serpent’s skin. She watches as Betty busies herself with turning on the oven and grabbing a tray from beneath the stove, on which she places six burgers and a mountain of fries from the Pop’s to-go bag stashed in her backpack.

It’s a ridiculous amount of food, Toni thinks, followed by the horrific realization that the only person alive who could eat five Pop’s burgers in one sitting is Jughead. She cringes. On top of everything else, she’s somehow accidentally inserted herself into the tattered remains of Betty and Jughead’s date night.

It’s not that tonight has made her feel _bad_ about what happened between her and Jughead—she refuses to, on principle—but if she’s stuck here, Toni decides, the least she can do is make it easy on everyone. There’s no need for the two of them to spend the next few hours making awkward small-talk. She’ll just say she’s tired and retreat to whichever extra bedroom—houses like these always have a guest room or two—Betty sends her. 

“I’m going to get of these wet clothes,” Betty announces, before Toni can speak. “I’ll lend you something to change into."

* * *

She shows Toni to Polly’s room, unused and untouched since she left. Alice has insisted that they leave it exactly as it is, as though Polly could be home at any minute—even though she’s made it clear that she wants nothing to do with Riverdale; that she and her babies are never coming back.

Usually, they just leave the door closed. Most days, Betty can’t stand to look inside. But tonight, she pushes it open and flicks on the light. The room is filled with memories of her sister over the years—from tea parties in the corner and braiding each others’ hair on the window bench, to the days right before she left, with red-rimmed eyes and a broken heart. _This town will take whatever you love and tear it apart,_ she’d said. Betty finds she can’t argue with that.

“If you want to get washed up, there’s a bathroom and shower through that door,” she points. “Towels are clean.”

Toni looks around, taking it all in—the pink bedspread; the desk and bookshelves and closet, all filled with so much _stuff_. Books and clothes, makeup—the trappings of an picturesque all-American girl. She’s willing to bet that Betty’s room is a near mirror of this one.

It’s a far cry from the dufflebag of items she managed to grab from family’s trailer on her way out the door, now taking up residence in Jughead’s bedroom. She wonders briefly if it’s still there or if he’s thrown it all out in an attempt to appease Betty. She doesn’t think he would, but she also has learned that an upset Jughead has a tendency to make rash choices, especially when it comes to her.

They’re just things, she reminds herself. They don’t matter. As long as she has her bike— _please, please let_ _it_ _not be ruined after tonight_ —she has everything she needs. “Thanks,” she mutters, before realizing that she's alone. Betty is already gone.

* * *

Betty sits on her bed looking blankly ahead, before dropping her head to her hands.

Outside, the wind howls and the thunder booms. She knows that she must still be cold, still upset—but right now, she just feels exhausted. Numb. It’s a welcome nothingness, almost refreshing in the way it’s quieted her fierce rage, dulled the piercing heartache. She’s been on some version of autopilot since coming inside—ever Alice Cooper’s good daughter, the consummate hostess—but now that she’s finally alone, she lets herself realize just how tired she really is.

It’s like she can’t quite bring tonight’s reality into focus; it still feels unthinkable to her that Jughead kept so many secrets these past few weeks—her brain just can’t fully grasp it as the new normal.

When they’d reconciled, they’d promised to finally stop hiding the truth from each other. Tearful confessions and pledges of _never again._ Maybe she was a fool, but she’d trusted him—trusted that he’d confessed everything: joining the Serpents, Initiation. It’s hypocritical, she knows; she’d sworn to him with the same earnest sincerity, repeated back the same promises of honesty.

And yet. There are so many secrets she never managed to tell him, either.

It’s probably for the best now, she decides. If tonight has proven anything, it’s that knowing the full truth wouldn’t bring them closer together—that seems laughably naive to her now.

It would only put him in greater danger.

* * *

Toni exits the shower and heads back into Polly’s room. On the bed, Betty has placed a folded pair of leggings and a long-sleeve thermal, which she quickly throws on and heads down to the kitchen.

Downstairs, Betty’s taking the food out of the oven. She’s in pajamas too, and on the counter is a wine glass, poured full to the top. Toni can’t help but raise her eyebrows as she sees her take a sip.

“I think,” Betty says wryly as she pours another glass and passes it over, “if ever a night called for breaking into my mom’s stash of Chardonnay, this is it.”

White wine certainly isn’t Toni’s drink of choice—she’s a whiskey girl through and through, not a suburban housewife—but she can’t argue with that.

* * *

Betty takes her dinner into the living room and flips on the TV. Toni hesitates for a moment, then plops down on the couch after her, placing her wine glass on a coaster and plate of burger and fries gingerly on the coffee table. She’s no stranger to eating dinner in front of a screen, but the ratty futon and puffy chair in her trailer are a far cry from the pristine couch she's sitting now. 

Betty turns back to the kitchen. Toni awkwardly begins to stand, unsure if she’s supposed to stay or follow. “Forgot the ketchup,” Betty mutters, heading to grab it from the refrigerator. It’s clear to Betty that Toni is deeply uncomfortable in her house. Though she’s somewhat ashamed of it, the realization gives her a moment of vindictive consolation—after all, Toni’s _comfort_ is not exactly her top priority. She's allowed to be mad, she reminds herself. Her relationship with Jughead is irreversibly fucked at this point and it’s Toni’s fault.

Except, if she’s honest with herself, she knows it isn’t really—the majority of the blame lies squarely on Jughead. Toni never owed her anything.

But it’s easier to hate Toni, to paint her as some desperate homewrecker who jumped at the chance to steal her man. But Betty knows that there were cracks in their foundation, in the first place. There must have been, for them to end up here.

And to just pin this on some fictionalized mistress lets Jughead off the hook too easily; their hookup is secondary to the fact that he hid it from her. The real betrayal—that pounding ache in her chest that she can’t seem to shake—is in his actions, not hers.

* * *

When she comes back, ketchup in hand, Toni looks panicked. “I swear to you, if I knew how to change the channel, I would,” she says, holding up all three TV remotes in her hands, eyes wide. It’s only then that Betty tunes in to what’s playing on the screen, just in time to hear Ross yell at Rachel in exasperation, _“We were on a break!”_ as the laugh track to _Friends_ roars.

By all counts, Betty concedes, this night has been a full-blown disaster. Instead of spending a romantic evening with her boyfriend, their relationship is in shambles thanks to his… well, if not _technically_ infidelity, certainly an emotional betrayal (they were, she admits to herself, squarely on a break at the time); she’s just learned that she’s being harassed by the Serpents’ rival gang—a fact that she finds more annoying than terrifying because she’s _already_ being stalked by a psychotic serial killer bent on making her his unwilling accomplice; and somehow, she’s managed to find herself hosting _the other woman_ on what has to be the most awkward sleepover of all time, thanks to the storm of the century.

Betty can’t help it. She bursts out laughing along with the TV.

* * *

Maybe it’s the Chardonnay, Toni thinks. Betty definitely seems like a lightweight. Or maybe she’s snapped entirely. But after a few seconds, the absurdity hits her and she begins to cackle, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I think I'm incapable of writing Riverdale fic and not making a _Friends_ reference?
> 
> 2\. So, this part came out more angsty than I thought it would (I mean, Betty is allowed some angst, surely--but this perhaps lays it on a little thick). I swear we are getting to the actual emotional breakthroughs, any day now.
> 
> 3\. This has also turned into a fic that is, not directly but certainly at least a little, about the Black Hood? Which is by far my least favorite plotline of all time. I have no idea how that happened.
> 
> 4\. As always, thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toni realizes she must have dozed off because the next thing she knows, she’s woken up to a small gasp from Betty as a local news promo rolls across the TV screen.
> 
> “Did you hear that?” Betty asks, sounding a little panicked.
> 
> “No,” Toni answers, and Betty turns to stare at her. “They just said that someone shot the Sugarman, even though he’s in custody.”

Betty is laughing so hard that tears have formed in her eyes and are threatening to run down her cheeks. She’s laughing so hard that she can’t breathe; the kind of full-body laughter that once it starts, it’s impossible to rein in. She can’t remember the last time she laughed like this.

“So...” Toni hesitates, once she’s managed to stop chortling. Despite wanting to avoid tangling herself any further in Betty and Jughead’s affairs, she wonders if the night will go more smoothly if they just get everything out in the open. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“God, no,” says Betty, dabbing the tears from her eyes with a napkin. She chuckles again as she says it, hit again by how bizarre her night has become. She speaks without editing herself, without worrying if she’ll offend anyone or give away too much. She can’t remember the last time she felt so unencumbered over what other people will think—so honest. So free. She used to always feel this way with Jughead, before their lives went to complete shit: before South Side high, before the Serpents. Before the Black Hood.

She misses it, she realizes. She misses that intimacy. She’s furious at him, but she misses him too.

And she _definitely_ doesn’t want to talk about any of it with Toni. Just the thought of it causes her to burst out laughing again.

(“Thank Christ,” murmurs Toni at Betty’s response as she takes a large swig of Chardonnay.)

* * *

After she’s stopped cracking up, Betty grabs the remote and starts flipping through the channels. It is, she discovers, surprisingly hard to find anything on TV that doesn’t put her and Toni back on dicey territory. An old episode of _New Girl_? Given that Toni is crashing with Jughead indefinitely, the idea of watching two roommates fall in love seems wildly unappealing. _The Good Place_? Somehow, a show about morality and the cosmic impact of bad behavior feels a little uncomfortable. The newest _Crazy Ex Girlfriend_? The title speaks for itself.

Betty scrolls past a random episode of _Law and Order: SVU._ Amaro is arresting some drunk girl for driving under the influence as she tries to flirt her way out of it. Betty knows it’s a little morbid to enjoy shows like this considering… well, everything in her life these days, but she’s always had a soft spot for Olivia Benson. Plus, she’s seen this episode before—it’s a not-so subtle analogy for Lindsay Lohan’s downward spiral—and it’s pretty good. She leans back into the couch, pulls a blanket over her legs and settles in.

“Oh,” smiles Toni quietly, after watching the screen for a few seconds. “I love this one.”

* * *

Another episode of SVU starts playing as soon as the credits roll, and likely one another follows the second—some channel is always playing a marathon—so Toni isn’t sure how many they end up watching. She realizes she must have dozed off because the next thing she knows, she’s woken up to a small gasp from Betty as a local news promo rolls across the screen.

“Did you hear that?” asks Betty, sounding a little panicked.

“No,” Toni answers, and Betty turns to stare at her. “They just said that someone shot the Sugarman, even though he’s in custody.”

Toni makes a small noise in the back of her throat. As teachers go, on paper Mr. Phillips had been one of the better ones she’s had—he’d actually read the books he taught them and bothered to grade their tests on time. But something about him seemed off, too. He’d been so _concerned_ for his students; pretending to care about their lives, always wanting to know what was going on between the gangs. She could tell from a mile away that it had all been an act.

Jughead had been shocked when the police came to arrest him at school, but to Toni, it had all made a certain kind of obvious logic. She’s been more surprised by his reaction; even after everything he'd been through, Jughead still lived with the expectation that most adults were supposed to give a shit about their lives; that people were, when given the option, generally good. Toni had been disillusioned of that empty hope long ago.

“You were in his class, right?” Betty starts to ask but is interrupted by her phone. It’s ringing with some ridiculously saccharine tune from the 40’s— _lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli lolli lolli lollipop_ _,_ which causes Toni to roll her eyes.

But Betty seems frozen, staring down at her cell in her hands. “I have to answer this,” she sputters as she stands and begins walking upstairs.

It doesn’t seem like she’s talking to her, Toni thinks. It feels like Betty’s talking to herself, bracing for whoever is on the other end of the line.

“Wait here,” Betty says sharply, turning to her with wide eyes. “I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

* * *

Toni does her best to pay attention to the news. On the TV, the weatherman announces that parts of town have lost power thanks to the storm, but that it should be clear by morning. The next segment is back to covering Mr. Phillips, “South Side High’s favorite English teacher—and resident secret drug dealer.” Toni can tell just by the way the newscasters say “jingle jangle” (lightheartedly, emphasis all wrong) that they have no idea what they’re talking about.

Despite telling herself that’s it’s none of her business, her eyes keep flicking over to the darkened staircase. Toni isn’t _concerned_ about Betty; she’s just curious. They may have shared a moment or two, but she and Betty aren’t friends. It’s not her problem.

And yet. She can’t seem to stop thinking about how strangely Betty reacted to the call. It occurs to Toni that, out of everything that’s happened tonight—the Ghoulies stalking Betty to Pop’s, their treacherous ride home in storm, the attack on Toni’s bike— _this_ is the only time that Betty looked scared. Terrified, even.

* * *

In total, Toni manages to convince herself to wait about ten minutes before her curiosity gets the better of her. She silently slides off the couch, then creeps softly up the stairs after Betty.

(She might _also_ be worried about her, she acknowledges as she delicately rounds the top landing and continues on towards Betty's room. But only a little bit.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. It seems somewhat ridiculous to be writing a fic that features the Black Hood so heavily, when S3 has a whole new bonkers Big Bad, but here we are?
> 
> 2\. I really struggled with what TV show or movie Toni and Betty should watch together! For awhile, I had a draft which involved a viewing of _Spotlight,_ but when your fic involves that readers be familiar with a secondary source on the plodding, strategic work of a newsroom in exposing a Catholic Church sex scandal and cover-up, you've clearly gone off the rails. (I just feel like Betty would have *feelings* about it!)
> 
> 3\. I also had a version where they watched _White Collar,_ because *I* have feelings about it.
> 
> 4\. Confession: I wrote this in one sitting and did not proofread it at all, so... apologies in advance for the many errors that I'm sure are there!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the fuck,” gasps Toni, after Betty drops her cell into her lap and heaves a sigh, relieved and exhausted, then starts feverishly scribbling in her notebook.
> 
> “What the actual fuck,” she repeats, apparently for her own benefit, since Betty is hunched over and writing, seemingly ignoring her.
> 
> “Is… Was that? The Black Hood is calling you?” she eventually manages to get out, disbelieving even though she just witnessed it happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: Very brief mentions of self-harm (I think it's been established in the show that our girl Betty has some not-great coping techniques for stress and anxiety)

“I keep telling you, Riverdale is filled with sinners,” the Black Hood declares, voice like gravel. “Sinners and hypocrites. Haven’t you learned that yet? How many more times do I have to prove it to you? Your teachers, your friends,” he pauses, and Betty knows what comes next. She feels her heart skip a beat. “Your boyfriend.”

“You said you’d leave Jughead alone,” Betty pleads. She can sense the Black Hood’s pleasure on the other end of the phone. He’s enjoying this, she thinks with disgust. He enjoys the terror in her voice. She digs her fingernails into her palm, the quick bite cutting through the panic. “You promised.”

“They’re all impure,” leers the Black Hood. “It’s my job to clean up this town. And you’re going to help me.”

“I don’t understand,” Betty says plaintively. “You keep saying you’re doing all this for me? Well, I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it.”

She can hear the Black Hood breathing, husky and guttural. “You do, Betty. You’re just like me.” He’s starting to sound frustrated; they’ve had this conversation before, many times now. “It’s in your blood. And in Riverdale, bloodlines are as powerful as the maple sugaring lines that crisscross the forests. Don’t you get that?”

Betty’s eyebrows shoot up. In her notebook, she scribbles down _bloodlines_ , then _maple syrup_ and _Blossom_ _s,_ adding to the growing list of details that have stood out to her from their calls.

Next, she checks her watch; she’s kept him on the line for just over ten minutes, their longest one yet. Though the fear is nearly crippling, she knows she has to keep him talking. It’s the only way that he’ll slip up, divulge some clue that she can use to figure out his true identity and put a stop to this madness, forever.

There’s a creak in the hallway; Betty knows exactly which floorboard must have been stepped on in order to cause that distinct little wooden whine. She whips her head around, nearly delirious with dread. Her first thought is that the Black Hood has managed to distract her long enough to break into her house—that Toni is dead downstairs in her living room, and that she’s next.

When she registers that it’s actually Toni standing in her doorway, Betty swiftly raises her finger to her lips and shoots her a meaningful stare. Toni winces and for a second even looks regretful. In the back of her mind, Betty realizes she probably thinks she’s annoyed with her for leaving the living room when she explicitly told her to stay—but right now, she has no time for that.

“Are you still there?” asks the Black Hood. “I’d hate to think you’ve grown tired of me, when I’ve done so much to get your attention tonight.”

Betty forces herself to bring her focus back to the call. She can’t let herself dwell on Toni’s presence, or they may both end up dead. She's learned that the Black Hood does not take kindly to when she breaks his rules.

“I’m here,” she answers, doing her best to convey a stoic bravery. “But I’m done listening. You killed the Sugarman, not me. His death is on your conscience, not mine.” _I’m still one step ahead of you_ , she thinks to herself. It sounds more like a prayer.

Betty sees Toni’s face shift from apologetic to shocked. “That may be the case tonight,” rasps the voice in her ear. “But there’s a part of you that wishes it weren’t. You’re just like me.” He lets out a loud, low, clanging laugh—loud enough that Betty’s sure Toni can hear it too, now standing a few feet from her bed where she’s seated. “You can deny it all you want, but we both know it’s true.”

“It isn’t,” Betty spits out, ignoring the increasingly concerned looks Toni.

“It is,” promises the Black Hood. “You want to keep your hands clean? Here’s the good news: the mechanics of murder are a slippery thing. You don’t have to pull the trigger to be just as culpable.” He laughs again, and Betty can tell that he’s savoring every second.

“You gave me a name once.”

She closes her eyes and holds in a sob. Nick St. Clair. A monster in his own right.

She’d only done it to save Polly, Betty assures herself. But even though she’d managed to stop the Black Hood from killing Nick, just the very fact that she’d given into his demands makes her feel sick with shame.

“You’ll do it again.” It’s a statement, an order.

Betty shakes her head. “No,” she whispers. It’s finally silent on the other end—so quiet that, for a moment, she lets herself believe that he’s gone. She exhales.

“You can’t deny who you are. Until next time, princess.”

The line clicks dead.

* * *

 “What the fuck,” gasps Toni, after Betty drops her cell into her lap and heaves a sigh, relieved and exhausted, then starts feverishly scribbling in her notebook.

“What the actual fuck,” she repeats, apparently for her own benefit, since Betty is hunched over and writing, seemingly ignoring her.

“Is… Was that? The Black Hood is _calling_ you?” she eventually manages to get out, disbelieving even though she just witnessed it happen. She’d known about the cipher, but Jughead never mentioned anything else.

Betty stops writing and looks up, as if realizing for the first time that Toni is still in her bedroom. Toni catches her face freeze, hesitating for a second. She can tell that Betty is considering lying to her, but she must realize that there’s no point in denying it now.

“Yes,” she admits quietly.

“Fuck,” Toni exhales, glancing at the notebook in Betty’s lap. Though she can’t make out much—it’s upside-down from where she’s standing—she’s struck by just how _much_ is written in it. She can see that there are pages and pages filled with phrases and words, circled and underlined, arrows and notes overflowing in the margins.

This is obviously not the first time, Toni realizes with a shock.

“It started a few weeks back,” Betty says in a small voice, just louder than a whisper. She can’t seem to stop the words from tumbling out. “Usually when I’m alone. It’s like he’s watching me. I think I’m close to figuring it out, though—figuring _him_ out. Stopping him.”

“Betty,” Toni starts, before trailing off. She gets the logic—she’s read enough true crime to know that eventually, everyone slips up, even the most calculating criminal. But the actual reality of trying to single-handedly take down a serial killer? Toni can’t quite fathom it.

“He keeps saying that we’re alike, that I’m just like him,” Betty interrupts. “But tonight, he said that it’s ‘in my blood.’” She shudders, remembering. “And he mentioned maple syrup—it made me think of the Blossoms.”

Toni looks confused. “We’re distantly related; there’s an old family feud—it’s a whole thing,” Betty adds, waving her hand dismissively. She doesn’t have time to delve into the whole saga now. “But it got me thinking—maybe there’s another secret side of my family. And maybe it will lead me to him.”

 _Or maybe the answer is closer than that. Maybe there’s just another side to the family I already know,_ she wonders. Betty shakes her head slightly to push away the thought. The isolation and the fear are starting to get to her. The worst part is, she knows it’s what the Black Hood wants. It’s what he’s banking on.

“I wish I could find the old censuses for the town, but they’re not at the library,” she sighs. She’d discovered that a few months back, working on an extra credit assignment for History class. “And they’re not digitized either—Mrs. Lenges said they just disappeared one day.”

“Have you tried the South Side branch?” asks Toni, knowing the answer already. Northsiders never come to the library on her side of town. It’s tiny and hasn’t seen a new book in at least a decade, but she used to spend hours there when she was a kid. “There’s a whole room in the back filled with forgotten town records.”

It’s a good idea, Betty thinks, and not one she would have thought of herself. “No, I'll check it out tomorrow,” she smiles, feeling determined and slightly buoyed. She always feels better once she has a plan. “Thanks.”

* * *

Toni watches as Betty walks to window andjimmies up a loose board from the daybed, where she places the notebook before covering it with a pillow. She’s not entirely sure what to say next.

Betty digs in her nails, bracing for Toni’s reaction. She’s had this conversation before—well, not this _exact_ conversation; she’s known Archie and Kevin for years; she trusts them implicitly. Toni does not exactly fit that description. (Plus, she’d only told Kevin about the first letter since he’d threatened to go his father after that, with or without her permission. It was easier to just lie to him, along with Polly and Veronica and everyone else. And she’d stopped talking to Archie after the race with the Ghoulies, when it became clear that he was too reckless, too convinced that he could swoop in and save the day. He can’t, she knows. Not this time.)

Regardless, Betty is prepared for comes next: the hysterics; a plea that she come to her senses and tell her parents, the sheriff, even the FBI. She readies her arguments as to why she can’t—the Black Hood has made it clear that he’s not afraid to kill. Her friends’ and family’s lives are at stake. She can’t risk it. She won’t.

But there’s no barrage of demands that she handle the situation differently, no insistence that she go to the cops.

Instead, Toni asks the one question that she’s totally unprepared to answer. “Jesus Christ,” she exhales. “Are you okay?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Ooof, y'all. The Black Hood is a sinister, weird plotline from Season 2. I sketched out this story last year, before the season had finished, so things will remain a little open-ended with hints as to who I thought the Black Hood would be. (Spoilers: I was right!)
> 
> 2\. Also, LOL, remember that bonkers/upsetting Nick St. Clair storyline? Seriously, what is this show.
> 
> 3\. But! We are finally getting to the good stuff next! By which I mean, a Tughead hookup debrief between Toni and Betty, aka one of the main points of this fic.
> 
> 4\. As always, comments are deeply loved and appreciated!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know Jug,” Betty scoffs. She can feel the tears building, threatening to spill out. “I’ve known him my whole life.” She’s struck again by the similarities between Jughead and Toni, the ways that they must understand each other that she never will. “He doesn’t easily trust people and when he finds someone he does, that means something to him.” She bites her lip. “You mean something.”
> 
> This conversation has clearly taken a confessional, emotional turn—not Toni’s strong suit, even in the best of circumstances. She swallows, feeling deeply uncomfortable.
> 
> “It’s not like that. We’re better off as friends.” It's true; she's not just saying it for Betty's benefit—Toni had meant it when she'd said it to Jughead, the next day at Pop's. Hooking up with him was fine, and it had been fun, but it wasn’t anything more.
> 
> Betty makes a noise in the back of her throat, both dismissive and disbelieving.
> 
> “C’mon,” Toni rolls her eyes. No one—not even Betty Cooper—can be this naive. “Surely even you can grasp the concept of a few meaningless kisses.”

_Are you okay?_ Betty repeats the question in her head, then lets out a small, joyless laugh. “Have you ever been so completely _not_ okay that you have no choice but to somehow become okay with it?”

Toni gives a little half-smile. “That’s sort of my whole life,” she jokes, but it comes sounding more like a confession.

Whatever answer Betty had been expecting, that wasn’t it. She looks up sharply, studying her face intently. Toni does her best to hold her gaze, but after a few seconds the weight of her stare forces her to look away, down at the floor.

It’s in that moment that Betty realizes just how little thought she’s given to Toni as an actual _person_ , as opposed to Toni, the _problem_ in her relationship with Jughead. As if she didn’t also have a full life, with hopes and dreams and problems of her own.

“Yeah, well,” she mutters. It’s unsettling to realize that, especially after tonight, Toni knows so much more about her—even the one secret she’s fighting desperately to keep contained—while to Betty, she remains still obscured, unknown.

* * *

A long silence stretches out between them. At some point, Toni realizes she’s been counting along with the soft rhythm of Betty’s alarm clock. _Tick, tock. Tick, tock._

The question hangs heavy in the air, as though they're both stuck in place until its asked. Still, she almost doesn’t say it. “Does Jughead know?”

Betty crosses her arms at his name, defensive and guarded. She shakes her head slightly. “He knows enough.” Maybe it’s foolish and maybe it’s weak, but for a second, she wishes she could somehow go back in time to the night that she and Jughead had gotten back together. Everything between them then had felt so full of promise; their hopeful kisses, the exquisite dance of budding reconciliation. It hadn’t been the right time for death and pain, so much darkness.

She’d chosen to only tell him bits and pieces: that the Black Hood had contacted her again; his demands that she break up with him. But she hadn’t mentioned the calls, the constant fear and vigilance and exhaustion that defined her life now. She’d convinced herself that it was more important to tell Jughead that she’d never wanted to hurt him, that she’d never stopped loving him.

He didn’t need to know every detail in order to know what was true, Betty had decided. She still thinks it was the right thing to do, even if Jughead’s comparable calculation has ripped her heart open.

“Besides, it’s pretty irrelevant now, don’t you think?” she asks pointedly. It’s not the same, she knows—nowhere near it. Jughead was lying out of cowardice; she was trying to keep him alive.

* * *

Toni squirms again under Betty’s piercing eyes as she pieces it together. She’d just assumed that they'd broken up because Betty was been unable or unwilling to accept Jughead's desire to join the Serpents. It hadn’t once occurred to her that there would be any other reason.

“For what it’s worth, I get why you’re mad at him. He should have told you sooner,” she says delicately. She knows it's not her place to give Betty advice, nor does she want to—already, Toni feels enmeshed enough in the situation. Besides, Jughead's mistakes are his own; _she_ didn't do anything wrong.

And yet, because it's just so obvious (and maybe she _is_ starting to feel a little badly about it), Toni can't stop herself. “But whatever happened between me and Jughead, it doesn’t change how he feels about you.”

Betty’s smiles tightly; there’s no happiness behind it. Inside, she's seething. “Then why else would he keep it from me?” More quietly, she adds, “Why else would it happen?”

Toni gets the anger, but she’s incredulous to realize that underneath it, Betty is also sincerely, genuinely confused; that she’s truly _asking_. Like she hasn’t spent her entire life learning and re-learning that the people she loves will always, without fail, let her down.

“Because he was miserable,” she blurts out, frustrated. Even to her own ears, it sounds harsh. “And sometimes, miserable people make miserable choices.”

“I _know_ Jug,” Betty scoffs. She can feel the tears building, threatening to spill out. “I’ve known him my whole life.” She’s struck again by the similarities between Jughead and Toni, the ways that they must understand each other that she never will. “He doesn’t easily trust people and when he finds someone he does, that means something to him.” She bites her lip. “ _You_ mean something.”

This conversation has clearly taken a confessional, emotional turn—not Toni’s strong suit, even in the best of circumstances. She swallows, feeling deeply uncomfortable.

“It’s not like that. We’re better off as friends.” It's true; she's not just saying it for Betty's benefit—Toni had meant it when she'd said it to Jughead, the next day at Pop's. Hooking up with him was _fine_ , and it had been fun, but it wasn’t anything more.

Betty makes a noise in the back of her throat, both dismissive and disbelieving.

“C’mon,” Toni rolls her eyes. No one—not even Betty Cooper—can be this naive. “Surely even you can grasp the concept of a few meaningless kisses.”

But the doubt is still so evident on her face, the hope and the heartbreak. Without thinking, Toni walks across the room in three quick strides. Through the curtains at the window, she can just barely see the outline of the roof as the rain continues to fall, heavy and unbroken.

In front of her, Betty watches cautiously, confused. Before she can stop herself, Toni finds that she’s taken her face into her hands and pulled her close. Leaning forward, she crashes their lips together. Betty makes a small noise—of surprise, of pleasure; Toni isn’t sure which when she replays the memory later—and tilts her neck up, bringing her whole mouth into the kiss.

* * *

Toni’s first thought is that Betty tastes like she smells. Delicate and sweet. Intoxicating.

The second, which roars much louder than the first, is: _Oh, shit._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Now would be a good time for me to confess that I AM BACK ON MY BULLSHIT, Y'ALL. 
> 
> 2\. It feels important to say that there's definitely a version of this story where Betty and Toni team up to catch the Black Hood and become besties and Toni is not a mess of queer teenage feelings, nope none at all. If you feel like writing that fic, I would love to read it! But this is not that story.
> 
> 3\. It also feels important to say that *of course* queer people can have friends and *not* want to make out with them. I feel conflicted about that aspect of how I've written Toni, but I also feel like... well, here we are.
> 
> 4\. Iffff you came here for the Bughead and are feeling betrayed, I don't want to spoil anything but I don't think you'll be mad by the end? This fic takes place over one weekend, so like... I think it's a fair assumption that Betty's feelings for Jug are not going to shift all that much.

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops this fic popped into my head and wouldn't leave until I started writing it, so here we are.


End file.
